As used herein, the term “user equipment” refers to an electronic device that may be used for voice and/or data communication over a wireless communication network. Examples of user equipment include cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), handheld devices, wireless modems, laptop computers, personal computers, etc. User equipment (UE) may alternatively be referred to as a mobile station, a mobile terminal, a subscriber station, a remote station, a user terminal, a terminal, a subscriber unit, an access terminal, etc.
A wireless communication network may provide communication for a number of UEs, each of which may be serviced by a base station. A base station may alternatively be referred to as an access point, a Node B, or some other terminology.
A UE may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on the uplink and the downlink. The uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station, and the downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE.
The resources of a wireless communication network (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power) may be shared among multiple UEs. A variety of multiple access techniques are known, including code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA).
Benefits may be realized by improved systems and methods related to the operation of UEs.